What are your top five (or 10) games of all time?

Sonic Adventure DX is mostly the same game, with a few changes. Models of the core characters were updated with more polygons (Sonic lacked separate fingers in the original) and to make them more consistent with those of its sequel. They also added a “mission mode” I’ve never actually played, and in the GameCube release they added a whole bunch of fresh bugs to what is already a pretty buggy game! So on console, I prefer the Dreamcast version.

On PC, however, SADX on Steam is the best because you can install BetterSADX, an amazing set of fan mods that really makes the game feel like a “definitive” version. It allows you to play the game in full HD, fixes a bunch of bugs and gamepad issues, and more recently includes options for restoring some of the lighting effects that were exclusive to the Dreamcast version.

You can read more of me raving about BetterSADX in this review.

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I remember that review actually. I love when people do stuff like this. If people like your game, they will fix whatever is broken if you put it out on PC! I will check this out.

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Since Super Mario 3D Land is one of your top 5, I am curious if you have played Super Mario 3D World for Wii U. I haven’t played 3D Land, but 3D World is second only to Super Mario World for SNES as my favourite Mario game. I hear that the design team on 3D Land really polished their ideas for 3D World. I’m curious if you’ve played it, and how you’d compare it to 3D Land. If you haven’t played, I definitely urge you to. It’s honestly quite phenomenal. It’s the perfect harmony of the superb design of Super Mario World and a 3D world.

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Oh yeah, I 100% completed that thing… it really is a phenomenal game. Easily five stars, and I completely understand why someone would prefer it.

For me, I really love this style of Mario game on a portable device… short bursts of largely linear level design. But on a console hooked up to my living room TV, it didn’t “wow” me as much as the Galaxy games had. I even replayed Super Mario Galaxy 2 immediately after, and was struck by how much grander it felt in scope. The Galaxy games make me feel like I’m entering Disneyland, whereas the 3D Land/World games feel like I’m interacting with a really great playset on my living room floor.

If I were emulating these games on the same device, 3D World would probably win out… I’d bet I’d find it to be a more refined version of the experience. But the combination of 3D Land + 3DS wins out over the combination of 3D World + Wii U (for me, anyway).

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Hmm an interesting exercise.

  1. Planescape: Torment
    Best characters and game writing (that wasn’t a text adventure). Best overall story. Best little moments as well - I still remember interactions with Mourns-for-Trees, who has no consequence in the overall plot in any way. Best character growth - unlocking the various dialogues with each character was just simply awesome. Not without its flaws - mediocre combat and a somewhat lackluster closing area.

  2. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
    I almost forgot about this!! A fantastic game with excellent characters and writing, and some fantastically fun animations. Goofly rube-goldberg influenced gameplay worked well most of the time. Totally unique and whimsical.

  3. Virtue’s Last Reward
    Huge gameplay improvements over 999 and some just fantastic characters and wtf moments made me love this game so much. I still haven’t made my way through the 3rd game somehow, it couldn’t help but be a letdown.

  4. Baldur’s Gate II
    More generic setting, story, characters, and writing than PS:T. But great combat and exploring. And sooo much to see and do.

  5. Ico
    So pretty.

  6. Mass Effect 2+3
    Cheating a bit but I really feel like it was one continuous story. The Mordin/Krogan storyline was simply awesome.

  7. Knights of the Old Republic II
    I liked the first game a lot. But this one took it over the top with superlative writing, an excellent villain, and excellent characterization. I played the version before the fan patch came out, so the ending of the game was just a big long talk with the villain, and I thought it was great.

  8. Diablo II + LoD
    I put so many hours into this I feel obligated to add it to the list. The perfect brain numbing game.

Honorable Mentions would be all the games I loved as a kid: Civ II, the original Doom, the original Duke Nuke’m, Dungeon Master, Legend of Zelda.
I’m sure there’s plenty I’m leaving out but that’s what comes to mind at the moment.

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I can definitely see the appeal of portability. There are a number of games that I have on PS3/PS4 and PS Vita that I prefer on Vita. There are some games that simply feel better on a handheld than on a big screen. It’s not objectively better, it’s purely about the phenomenological experience. That the emotional and affectual bond with the game, game play and story are greater on a handheld. And the inverse applies as well. So I can see preferring the feeling of Super Mario 3D Land or World better on a handheld.

Some of my reasons for loving World are absent from Land.

  1. Character choice. I enjoy being able to choose from Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach and Rosalina. On one hand it reminds me fondly of Super Mario 2. On the other, I quite dislike Mario. It’s very subjective, and goes back to my preference for Luigi’s colour palate in Super Mario Bros. I liked green better as a kid, so I liked Luigi more than Mario. In Mario 2 I preferred Toad and Peach. I already disliked Mario based on colour palate (I was a weird kid). Luigi had the very odd high jump animation. Toad had super tight controls and Peach could fly. In Super Mario 3 and World you could kill off Mario and play as solo Luigi which I often did. From Mario 64 on you were stuck as Mario. I know he’s iconic, but once he got a voice I earned a deep respect for the mute button. Super Mario 3D World was a breath of fresh air because we suddenly had choice again, and choice that included Peach.

  2. Which leads me to the next reason I love 3D World: you don’t rescue Peach. I know you still rescue little fairy creatures, so the plot mechanic is still in place, but it is a nice change to play as Peach rather than rescue her.

  3. Multiplayer. This is a big one for me. There are so many great single player games, as well as games that are great for online multiplayer. But there are so few really good couch co-op games. And the one company that has always been great with couch co-op is Nintendo. My Wii U is basically my co-op machine, and 3D world is one of the best titles for that. My partner and I love playing games together, so that is a big plus in 3D World’s favour.

  4. Cat suits!

  5. Meowser!!!

  6. Rosalina. Ok, I know this is technically included in point number one, but I am still sad that I can’t replay Super Mario Galaxy as Rosalina.

I also understand you sentiment about Super Mario Galaxy, and I also understand why so many people love it. I am in agreement with the fact that it is a phenomenal game. I really love the series. But the full single player 3D Mario games will always take second place against the classic 2-D sides-scrollers in my mind. I see Mario as having two parallel progressions. One that originates with Super Mario Bros, and is perfected in Super Mario World. And one that starts with Mario 64 and continues on to Galaxy and the new Switch Mario game. The latter is a phenomenally fun series of Mario games. Mario 64 was superb innovation, and Sunshine and then especially Galaxy are the polished versions of Mario 64.

However, in my mind, none of those games capture the pure excitement and fun of Super Mario World. And sadly few games have recaptured that feeling for me. The New Super Mario games are fine passable 2.5D sides scrolling games. But they aren’t quite Super Mario World. And that’s why, when playing Super Mario 3D World, that I realized that the legacy of Super Mario World is not lost. Despite the fact that 3D World is very much 3D, it is the best successor to Super Mario World. It also pulls a lot of influence from Super Mario 2 and 3 which is quite nice.

Your description of 3D World as a great play set is apt. That is how I feel. I think that’s the feeling I prefer from Mario. other 3D Mario games are fun and present a wonderful array of challenges. But they are not fun like Super Mario World or 3D World. In Galaxy or Mario 64 I suffer Mario fatigue. After a while I am content to complete the game rather than finding that last star. But in Super Mario World or 3D World I want to find every possible secret, because I am invested. I want to keep playing with that great play set.

Obviously none of my feeling are universal. I feel this way because I am me. To me 3D World is the best Mario game since Super Mario World (except Mario Maker, wherein I can make actual Super Mario World levels!).

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I love this reply, @bmo. All of your reasoning makes complete sense, and it’s actually helped me understand a bit more of why I preferred 3D Land.

I 100% agree with you on reasons 2, 4, 5 and 6. On the others…

This is super interesting! 99% of the time in 3D World I played as Mario. Maybe it’s because I’m a designer, but I tend to gravitate toward the characters I know were intended as the “all-around” ones… I guess I just assume they’re most likely to be the best fit.

I’ve tried playing co-op 3D World with my wife, family members and some coworkers, and the same thing always happens… I enjoy myself, but everyone else gets super lost trying to find their character or coordinate to the next stage. Same thing happened with Rayman Origins and Legends, and with the NSMB games before that. I guess my social circle kinda sucks at platformers.

This explains a lot, actually. Although my family had an NES and I played (and enjoyed) SMB1-3, I really didn’t get into games very much until the Genesis arrived in my house. Some of my friends had an SNES and SMW, and I enjoyed it, but to my child-brain it simply felt like an evolution of the NES games, whereas Sonic and stuff felt new and exciting. As an adult, I can acknowledge that SMW is a far superior game, but at the time it might as well have felt like it was standing still to me.

By contrast, when Mario 64 came out it was like WHOA. I remember it actually made me dizzy at first, as it was the first 3D game I’d ever played. I remember when my family got an N64 I spent like an hour running around the castle courtyard before I even tried going inside.

Basically, it sounds like we both appreciate 3D World a lot, but I don’t care about multiplayer, and you have no such attachment to the 64/Galaxy tradition on console. In that context, I think our preferences make perfect sense. :slight_smile:

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Just gonna say I think 3D World is better, but to be fair looking at your list of favorite games you really seem to gravitate towards the obscure and underrated kind of games (with the exception of New Leaf which everyone including me gushes about). Never played Psychonauts, Super Mario 3D Land, or Sonic Adventure, and Fez is sitting on my desktop waiting to be played (speaking of which how do you feel about Phil Fish? He said some terrible things for no good reason, but as a developer, yourself do you kinda see what he was going through? I never played Fez but I am sad that Fez II was canceled.) but they all sound super fun!

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I don’t know Phil, so all I can say is that I loved his game and I’m sad he may not make another.

Huh, guess its better you don’t. Fish said some pretty nasty things I don’t agree with, but he did make a game for PS4 VR called SuperHyperCube and Shawn McGrath who co-created Fez made Dyad. So maybe check those two out I guess. Also does Grouvee have a friend system? I want to add people including you.

I feel bad for Phil Fish. He basically had a nervous breakdown in a very public way. It’s unfortunate. I know the full situation is far more complex than simply that, but he was the victim of something that affects a lot of developers: an immense amount of pressure to succeed and release a successful game. Fish could definitely have handled things better but I have a lot of sympathy for him. I’ve had my share of stress in life and I’ve not always handled every situation with grace, so I can empathize with what he might have been going through.

Also Fez rocks!

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Yea that’s how I feel about Fish too. The sad thing is if you go to the trailer for SuperHyperCube where Phil Fish and his team talk about the game, the video has a huge amount of dislikes and all of the top comments are negative ones, all of them bashing Fish. It is scary to think that everyone will remember us for our mistakes instead of our achievements. On the bright side, SuperHyperCube was published by Polytron, which is Phil Fish’s company which I thought he sold off along with the rights to Fez. So if he still has Polytron perhaps he still has Fez? Fez II might be possible.

That is interesting. I tend to pick characters with different feature sets. Peach was great in Super Mario 2 for reaching secrets that required her floating ability. My character choice extends to other games. I don’t believe I’ve ever run a cup in Mario Kart with Mario. For example, my player of choice in Mario Kart 8 is Rosalina. She’s considered part of the heavy Kart class, and as such has slower acceleration but higher top speed. She is harder to control for a novice, but if you do control her well she reaches and maintains higer speeds which gives you an edge. Plus she drifts like a boss! Characters like Rosalina or other heavy racers have a trade-off. If you have trouble maintaining a constant speed via drifting, you will fare poorly. But if you handle the kart well you are at an advantage. Mario doesn’t have that compromise or trade-off, so no matter how skilled you become you’ll never make record track time.

This surprises me. Not about multiplayer platformers in general, but about Super Mario 3D World. I say that because of how well Nintendo designed Super Mario 3D Land and World. The game has organic level progression. World 1-1 will teach you a mechanic, World 1-2 will allow you to practice that mechanic, World 1-3 will add a new dimension, and World 1-4 will combine everything and rely on what you learned in the previous three levels. It is brilliant because you don’t recognize that you are learning as you progress. I compare this to something like LittleBigPlanet. I love that game dearly, but it isn’t actually multiplayer friendly. May partner and I have played both that and Super Mario 3D World. LittleBigPlanet is somewhat unfriendly to players at different skill levels. It punishes players that might have less platforming experience. And they often feel left out and behind. We enjoyed Super Mario 3D World much more because despite the fact that the game has decent challenges, it never makes the players feel imbalanced. It handles co-operation far better. In LittleBigPlanet my partner often felt there was nothing for her character to do. In Super Mario 3D World we constantly felt like we relied on each other. Sometimes I’d get something right, sometimes she would. We were bouncing off each-other and solving things as a team. We saved each other’s bacon about equally. Nintendo got something very right with the multiplayer in this game. So while my experience matches your s for most co-op platformers, it doesn’t for Super Mario 3D World.

Now that’s not to invalidate your experience. It’s a shame that Super Mario 3D World was not the one that made multiplayer platforming click for them.

It kind of is, to be fair. A brilliant evolution, but an evolution nonetheless. I remember playing Super Mario World for the first time at someone else’s home. I immediately wanted the game, but I didn’t receive a SNES until later. So, while I waited for my eventual SNES (that I wasn’t sure I was going to receive) I played SMB3, because they were, in many ways, similar. Even as a kid I recognized that Nintendo took SMB3 and built on it to create Mario World.

The key difference however was the level and world design. SMB3, and the previous two games, actively encouraged skipping parts of the game. Mario World did the opposite. It encouraged you to find all the secrets. While I think that desire remains intact in Mario 64 to Galaxy, I don’t think it is ever done as well as Mario World, and the reason again is fatigue. At some point in Mario 64, 100 stars, instead of the full 120 stars, is enough. You’ve done enough. At least I am. I don’t feel rewarded enough to track down all 120 stars. Whereas I feel the opposite in Mario World. I want every alternative route. I want to complete the brutal platforming sections of star road and transform the entire world, koopa troopas included. Maybe that’s just me and I am applying personal enjoyment to the general design of the game with broad strokes.

All that is to say that I do love Mario 64 and Galaxy. And Mario 64 blew me away. It was one of my favourite games of that era. I still remember buying the N64 at Toys R Us when I was a teenager. I have fond memories of that game. The crucial point is that two decades later I look back and say “Mario 64 was a transformative and pioneering game that I loved, while Super Mario World was an evolutionary and iterative game that I love, and want to play again right now”.

So I did experience a significant whoa moment with Mario 64, and the game has stuck with me as an important one. But I guess it is matched by the moment I first played Mario World. That first moment wasn’t a woah one, it was something deeper. With Mario 64 I felt like this was something that have never been done before. With Mario World, I had no such feeling. It’s wasn’t brand new. It was just better than anything before it. It was not mind blowing. Rather it was revelatory. I realized that Mario had all that potential that was just waiting to be unlocked, and here it was. And that slightly subtler first impression laid the foundation for a love for the game that the wow factor of 3D simply didn’t do for me on the N64. The wow feeling was fleeting, while the subtler recognition of greatness that came with playing Super Mario World for the first time has lingered without ever diminishing.

I’ll finish by saying that I don’t agree fully that I don’t have an attachment to the 64 tradition of Mario games. I do fondly love Mario 64, and Galaxy is an absolutely superb game that I didn’t play until I bought a Wii U, but love nonetheless. I think a more apt description is that I simply love Super Mario World a little bit more than Mario 64. To get really cheesy on you I’d say that while Mario 64 touched my heart, Super Mario World seeped into my soul :wink:

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I promise to keep this one short. But I was thinking about it some more and I think I can put my feelings on the following more succinctly:

The difference, in my opinion, between Mario 64 and Super Mario World is that of the player goal. Mario 64 is the game that, in my mind, ushered in the trend in collectibles. The goal is to collect every star. The mark of achievement in that game is finding, and having, the total number of stars.

The goal in Super Mario World is different. It isn’t finding every secret. Finding every secret is secondary to the main goal, which is to play the game. I know I am treading in murky waters here with this argument, but hear me out. In Super Mario World the goal comes from the enjoyment of the levels. You want to play the levels because they are fun. You want to find the secrets because they lead to new fun levels. Your goal is to have fun and completing every aspect of the game leads to more fun.

The problem I find with Mario 64 is that this holds only partially true. For the first 70 stars you goal is to collect stars to unlock more levels. So for 70 stars you goal is the same as Super Mario World. You complete areas of the game and hunt down secrets to unlock more fun. However, this shifts after 70 stars. Your goal radically changes. You no longer need stars to unlock new levels, and thus new fun. After 70 stars your goal focuses on the singular task of finding more stars. You transition from looking for stars to unlock levels (and thus more fun) to simply looking for more stars. The task becomes about the stars rather than the levels. This is where Mario 64 dips in my opinion. After 70 stars it becomes a game for completionists, rather than a game designed to play for the fun of it. Thus, this is why I never find all of the stars. The motivation isn’t there. I don’t want to find stars for the sake of finding stars.

This is an aspect of contemporary Mario games that fundamentally bothers me (and I include the fact that Super Mario 3D World requires you to hunt down stars in this assessment). Nintendo showed the world that you could program achievements instead of gameplay. That rather than motivating players to play because it’s fun, they established the paradigm of playing past the point of fun, into tedium just to claim 100% completion. I know I am ignoring high scores on arcade machines and other metrics for bragging rights. And I know that Super Mario World displays a completion percentage, but I’d argue that this percentage was less of a direct motivator than the number 120 stars is a motivator in Mario 64.

So there you have my very non-succinct assessment of why Super Mario World appeals to me more than Mario 64 (despite the fact that I recognize the brilliance of the latter game). It’s a highly subjective argument (as if any argument isn’t), as it relies on a personal idea of what constitutes fun, and it is full of deep holes. But it might give you an idea of why one sticks with me more than the other.

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The distinction makes complete sense. Super Mario World has upwards of 60-70 unique levels with just shy of 100 unique “exits,” which means most levels have single, distinct goals… alternate exits are special, and don’t detract much from variety since only certain levels have them.

When the team went to 3D, they had a problem. 3D worlds are way more complicated. With the added complexity, newness and storage requirements of 3D, it wasn’t realistic to design that many stages. So instead of 70 stages with 1-2 secrets each, they had to add between 2 and 7 to only 18 stages. It’s a clever solution to the problem (much more so than what Sonic Team did, which was add characters to retread stages instead of new goals), but it is a fundamentally different balance.

I’m not really motivated to do that either, but it doesn’t bother me. The ability to beat the game with a smaller percentage of stars is basically Nintendo’s way of avoiding the need for difficulty settings or “gold leaf” power-ups in those games. Not that there’s anything wrong with those design decisions, I guess the percentage completion just doesn’t stick in my craw all that much.

I think both 64/Sunshine/Galaxy and 3D Land/World have their share of tedious optional tasks (purple coins, getting to the top of all the flagpoles with certain characters, etc.). The designer part of my brain reads this paragraph and thinks “that’s actually an interface problem more than a gameplay problem.” In 3D Land/World, those completionist goals are communicated very subtly, but in 64/Sunshine/Galaxy they are the primary measure of your progress.

That’s awesome!!

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I think I was a bit hyperbolic in my description of my displeasure with the mechanic. I essentially ignore these goals. I am most only bothered if something I really want in-game is gated via collection.

That is perfectly put, and I completely agree. I that that conveys the essentials of what I was trying to communicate about Mario 64. Maybe that’s part of what I enjoy about 3D World over Mario 64 or Galaxy, the fact that in the former I don’t feel my progress is measured in stars as much as I do in the latter. And maybe that hits on at least a bit of why 3D World feels closer in spirit to Super Mario World, in my eyes.

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You make good points on this. However, I have to jump back in (not a pun!) and mention one thing i liked a lot about mario 64 was how the castle itself is a meta field. a few secrets, etc. Of all the levels, I loved that castle the most! Just goofing around being a vandalish punk, jumping on the walls, running up the stairs trying to screw up the camera, trying to break things, lol etc. In general it was a fun game to just fool around in, and it gave you some ways to do it. At the upper tiers of star finding it’s even less about dedicated exploration and feels a lot like grinding. Considering Ocarina of time has something similiar to this, it might be a bit of ‘a spirit of the times’, yea its not ever enjoyable and really seems to me like a kind of dated mechanic (but i’m also older and aint nobody got time for that) but probably seemed like a good idea at the time (Tyler’s 3d game point makes a lot of sense), anyway, doesnt negate your point, I can’t disagree, I just want to mention how cool that castle is! lol. (I think i’m unconsciously trying to defend the time i spent to find them all, rather than the game itself lol)

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Most of the time those initial open areas started as a playground for the developers to do exactly what you describe… get the controls and the feeling of the game right. After spending that much time on those initial areas, it makes sense that they’d find a way to incorporate it into the game, letting us explore as players in the same space that they explored as developers.

What’s interesting is that devs still do this, but if the test area doesn’t fit into the game, they just throw it away once they’re done. Some recent examples from upcoming games are Yooka-Laylee’s Toybox and the Psychonauts 2 art test recreating an area from the first game.

No defense necessary! I managed to get all 120 stars in Super Mario 64 just a few years ago… I was sick in bed with the flu and played on the Wii U gamepad. Totally abused save states to do it, though!

I also 100% completed the original Super Mario Galaxy back when it first came out. That game owned my imagination for months.

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Agreed. I know I must sound like I’m coming down really hard on Mario 64 and Galaxy. But I should stress that none of what I say is absolute. It’s my personal critique of the game and I begrudge no one who enjoys capturing all 120 stars. I am a person who loves doing every fetch quest in Dragon Age: Inquisition and that game is frequently attacked for the inclusion of those very fetch quests. I think that it’s possible to enjoy the act of collecting everything (despite by tirade against collectibles). For me it doesn’t quite click in Mario 64 the way it does in DA:I. But I can completely understand that it will click for other people.

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That’s interesting. This reminds me of the version of the Ratchet & Clank Museum found in A crack in Time. The Yook-Laylee devs should include it as an unlockable area, like the R&C Museum.

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